


Touched

by Avalonia



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Ableism, Canon Divergence, Explicit Sexual Content, Fantasy elements, Gallavich, M/M, Meet-Cute, Referenced Suicidal Thoughts/Attempts, Romance, Sexual Tension, call center au, magical thinking, mentions of past violence, mentions of sexual abuse, unspecified mental disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 00:00:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2560583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avalonia/pseuds/Avalonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian Gallagher is just another drone in a call center full of them, with nothing to his name but a slow computer that hates his guts, a head full of voices that may or may not be real, and an unshakable reputation as a headcase. Funny how Mickey Milkovich, the grumpy guy from IT, doesn't seem to care about any of that.</p><p>An (a)typical office romance with a bit of a twist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday

**Author's Note:**

> A short fic, with five chapters for five days, Monday through Friday. A chapter will be posted a day until the conclusion this Friday.
> 
> This is a canon divergent fic, meaning that the background of most of the characters stays basically the same. The major difference is Ian has been struggling with an unspecified mental illness all his life, and though he and Mickey know of each other, their paths have never directly crossed...until now. And since the events of season 3 did not occur, neither did Mickey's forced marriage to Svetlana.
> 
> Other characters will pop up here too, essentially the person they are on the show, with only their jobs/positions being different.

Ian Gallagher didn’t mind being a drone.

Since he worked in an industry that prized drones, row after row of faceless, nameless figures with pleasant voices sitting at identical cubicles with flimsy dividers for privacy, that was probably a good thing.  It was good for him anyway - he’d spent his whole life being different and standing out.  Now all he wanted to do was blend in, be one among many, unnoticeable and unremarkable.

The call center for Bergeron Collectibles INC, located in a bland, pale brick building on north Broadway, was the perfect place for him to do that.  Ian sat at a quiet desk in the corner.  He had a phone, a headset, a slow computer that hated his guts, a few pictures of family and military heroes, and a handful of knickknacks, including a small blue bear that sat inside the open upper cabinet above Ian’s monitor and looked down on him with what he imagined was a accusatory expression.  Ian couldn’t really blame the bear for looking permanently pissed off - Ian’s therapist had given it to him after suggesting that he invest in a few stress balls to keep his restless hands in one place.  The rubber, air filled bear had been squeezed so much that he had holes in both legs and its eyes had been completely rubbed off.  After a while, Ian started to feel guilty about that, colored in a new set of eyes for the bear and set it up on his upper cabinet shelf, where it was safe from Ian’s restless fingers.  He vowed after that to never squeeze anything with a face...anything that wasn’t human, anyway.

The name of the company that Ian worked for made it all sound far more upscale than they actually were - Bergeron Collectibles was little more than a resaler that bought all manner of cheap, foreign made products from clothing to ornate teapots in bulk, marked them up immensely, and sold them online and in catalogs.  

Ian was just a few months short of his first year there.  He spent his shifts fielding orders and handling complaints.  It was repetitive, demeaning work that didn’t require a lot of thought.  Most of his coworkers hated it with a rage bordering on frothing, but Ian didn't mind it so much.  Sure, he didn’t want to do this for the rest of his life, but he was only twenty.  It was a good place to just catch his breath for a while, save up some money, and try to figure out the next step.  

His family thought so too - his older sister Fiona, in particular, had thought getting Ian a job there was a real coup, since it was a step up from minimum wage and there were health benefits, even a employee assistance plan to help with college costs.  Ian didn’t know if he was ready for that yet - the idea of spending so much time in close proximity to people his own age, trying to act like one of them, made him sweat.  Plus, going to college meant you had to have at least a general idea of what you wanted to achieve in life and right now, Ian didn’t have a damn clue beyond just getting through each day as it came.

On this Monday, Ian found himself almost as grumpy as the rest of his co-workers for once. The day had dawned gloomy, chilled with the threat of impending rain, despite being late August.  Plus, he hadn’t quite recovered from the weekend yet - he’d nearly broken his alarm clock when it finally rousted him from his stupor that morning.

In short, he really wasn’t in the mood for the blue screen of death that his monitor was presenting to him right then.

“Come on, you useless fucking piece of shit,”  he muttered, restarting it for the third time.

“Good morning, sweetie!”  Ian looked up to see his supervisor, Jasmine, heading his way.  He hid his grimace at the way she addressed him - Jasmine had a tendency to speak to him like he was five.  Probably because she was friends with his sister and had been for years - she’d been front and center for some of the larger disasters of Ian’s life.  Still, she was a good supervisor for him, mostly because she left him alone, knowing that too much hovering stressed him out.

“Got something for you,”  Jasmine stopped next to him and handed him a small, plastic wrapped toy.  Confused, Ian pulled it open to find a foam figure of a football player with a generic smile.  He looked up at Jasmine, eyebrows raised.

“It’s for making at least ten sales during the Bergeron Blender promo we ran last month,”  Jasmine explained.  “You know, football, because you made a sales touchdown…”  she grinned at his expression. “Hey, I didn’t come up with this lame-ass reward system.  It’s all the brilliant idea of some upper level schmuck who makes ten times what any of us do for imagining that somehow foam figurines are exactly the incentive we need to make our sales quota.”  

“Anyway,”  she got that apologetic tone in her voice that Ian hated, knowing she never used it with any of her other employees, “it’s past start time so I really need you to get on the phone - “  her eyes drifted to his blue computer screen.  “Oh!  Again?”

Ian shrugged unapologetically.  If she was going to treat him differently, he might as well take advantage of it.  

Jasmine sighed.  “I’ll send a work order over to IT.  Just hang out and try to look busy.”

A few seconds after she’d disappeared down the row, a voice called his name.  Ian looked up to see one of his least favorite people, Dustin Stuart, standing at the end of the row with a blonde who looked barely out of her teens.  Quickly, he looked back at his keyboard.  Trying to make conversation with Dustin, he’d quickly learned, was extremely pointless and usually apt to make him want to smash something.

He’d gone to school with the guy, and Dustin was deeply bitter because he was supposed to have gone on to be some football hotshot, but after one too many DUIs the recruiters stopped calling and he’d ended up at Bergeron like every other washout from their neighborhood.  Only thing that seemed to make the guy happy now was banging the female new-hires and taking pot shots at any one he could.  Ian was a favorite, and frequent, target.

“Man,” he was saying now to his latest conquests.  “I’d love to have an early shift and guaranteed weekends off and never have to worry about my schedule being changed, like _some people_ around here,”  he shot Ian a hard look and the blonde followed his gaze.

“I thought you had to be here like, years or something to get those kind of hours,”  his new, and undoubtedly temporary, friend said.  

“Yeah.  Or you could be a certifiable headcase like Gallagher over there.  Being a shrink’s wet dream is good for all sorts of special treatment,”  Dustin laughed loudly.  The girl looked uncomfortably at Ian and then nervously away when she saw him looking back.  Ian flushed deep red as Dustin smirked, putting a quasi-protective arm around his mark and steering her away.

Ian was used to it, but it didn’t make it any easier.  He’d had a brief fantasy that Bergeron would be the place where he could start over, especially since his brother Lip, who’d gotten Ian the job there, had gone away to school.  Even when the whispers began, nearly as soon as he’d gotten hired, he’d continued to hope. People came and went at Bergeron so much that Ian had thought that his rep would die quickly, but he’d underestimated the call center gossip mill and people like Dustin, who wouldn’t let it go.  As a consequence, even the constant influx of new employees generally heard stories about Ian before they’d ever even met him.  With the deck stacked so clearly against him, Ian had long given up on any idea that he might actually make friends there and settled for keeping his head down and staying under the radar.  

Shaking his head, Ian unwrapped football man and set him next to the bear, perhaps a little too close because the bear was immediately pressed right up against football man’s crotch in a very biblically forbidden kind of way.  "Rude!"  The bear exclaimed.  "I don’t even know him!"

“Sorry,” Ian muttered, and moved football man a more socially acceptable distance away.

Several minutes later, Ian was idly pressing random buttons on his keyboard and trying to ignore the continued grumbling coming from Bear’s direction when a voice sounded right next to his ear.

“What’s the problem, Gallagher?”

Ian nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw who was standing next to him.

He knew who Mickey Milkovich was, of course.  In addition to being coworkers, in the loosest sense of the word since Mickey worked in the IT office and was rarely seen on the floor, they used to live in the same neighborhood before Uncle Patrick had Ian and his siblings evicted.  The Milkovichs had been fairly notorious there; Ian only knew enough about them to give them a wide berth.  From what he’d heard, the whole clan were a violent bunch, and rumors that they enjoyed a little gay bashing were rife as well, added incentive for him to keep his distance.

Though the lone girl, Mandy, had been nice enough, from what he remembered.  They'd been partnered up in a few school projects - in a strange way she had been the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend while he was in school.

Mickey cleared his throat loudly, pulling Ian out of his thoughts.  He gestured impatiently for Ian to speak.

“I, um…”  Ian bit his tongue hard to keep himself from continuing to stammer.  “Where’s Matty?” he asked instead, referring to the IT guy that usually worked on his station.

Mickey just grunted.  “We've had eight work orders on your computer in the last three months.  I wanted to check this out for myself,”  Impatiently, he waved Ian out of his way, and then pulled up a chair from the empty station next to them.  “Jesus,”  he muttered, looking at the blue screen, “What the fuck did you do this time?”

“I didn’t do anything!”  Ian blurted out defensively.  “I just turned it on and it was like this.”

Mickey didn’t respond, but his shockingly expressive eyebrows raised skeptically.  

“Can’t you just get me a new one?”  Ian asked, crossing his arms on his chest, his nervousness being overtaken by annoyance now.  “I mean, eight work orders in three months has got to say something, right?”

Mickey was already busy punching keys, but he looked up at Ian briefly.  “You know about the fucking red tape around here.  Can’t replace shit without a damn good reason, and we’ve run every single scan we can and completely restored your operating system twice.  Every time we test it, it checks out fine.  So what does that tell us?”

“That it hates me,”  Ian muttered, more to himself, slumping in his chair.

“It hates you,”  Mickey rolled his eyes.  “Thank you for that expert analysis.”

“Computers can run multiple programs, analyze and process millions of bits of data per second, diagnose disease and control nuclear warheads and you don’t think one can decide to hate a person if it wants to?”  Ian demanded.

Mickey just shook his head, brow furrowed in concentration as he looked at the screen and began to punch keys.  “Can’t say I ever thought of it that way before,”  he mumbled, looking completely disinterested.

Watching Mickey work was oddly compelling.  Ian found his eyes touring over the other man as Mickey’s fingers flew over the keyboard and windows began to tile up on the monitor at a lightning fast rate.  Their office was a casual environment, jeans and t-shirts being the normal attire, and yet Mickey seemed to thumb his nose at even those rather lax standards with his messy hair, torn jeans, sleeveless muscle shirt and fingerless gloves.  Letting his eyes tour Mickey’s well built upper arms, Ian couldn’t say he was sorry for the view, either.

Catching himself, he reddened at his own thoughts.  Jesus, of all people to start getting a hard nut over…

Too soon, Mickey shoved himself away from the desk and stood up.  “All done.  Try not to piss it off anymore, alright?”  

Before Ian could say anything else, Mickey was striding up the aisle and disappearing from view.  Ian watched him go with the oddest sense of regret, before sitting down to get to work.  Another day, another dollar…

The day passed, as Mondays were apt to do, with punishing slowness.  At least it was a slow call flow day, which was good since Ian was hardly in the mood to listen to some angry housefrau shriek in his ears about her broken cat figurine, but bad because it made the day pass even slower.  A bored manager finally commandeered the tv monitor they usually used for system updates and put on a replay of the Bears game from the day before.  Discreetly, Ian positioned football man so he’d have a full view of the screen, figuring he should at least have a glimpse of his kin.  When Bear grumbled jealously, Ian moved it over too.

He was on the phone with a man who was ordering a special edition Pamela Anderson DVD retrospective, tapping his fingers impatiently while the customer went to get his credit card, when Football Man emitted a loud sigh.

“Look at the image I have been formed in,” he spoke dolefully as football players lunged at each other, ending up in a sweaty pile.  “Is this what I was meant to pay tribute to?  This macho, homo-erotic representation of our cultural past times?”

Ian punched the mute button on his handset.  “Homo- _what_?”

“Why is this my lot?”  Football Man was continuing.  “What if I don’t want to be part of this primitive display of ultra masculinity?  Why couldn’t I have been created in the form of an artist, or a poet?  Are we all doomed to only reflect back the roles that others have assigned to us?”

“For the love of - how did we end up with this blank faced philosopher?”  Bear demanded. _“You are made of dense foam!”_

“Oh,” said Football Man, considering.  “Well, I think I may have originated from partially recycled materials.  I seem to have a great many perspectives from a wide variety of sources.”

“Is that so? In my perspective, it’s a shame you weren’t recycled into a canine chew toy,”  Bear snapped.

“That’s impolite,”  Football Man huffed.

Ian’s customer was speaking again, but Ian couldn’t hear him over Bear and Football Man’s grousing. “Just one moment please, Mr. Clearwater,”  Ian pressed the mute button again and leaned towards Bear.  “If you two don’t shut up, I’m locking you in a drawer, I swear to G -”

A shadow fell over his desk.  “Ian?”  

Startled, Ian looked up to see Ned Lishman, the Center Director, who’d been passing by with a couple of upper level managers Ian only knew well enough to nod too.  He had stopped next to Ian, looking at him questioningly.

“Everything alright here?”  Ned smiled but his polite expression didn’t mask the wariness in his eyes.

“Oh, fine,”  Ian said hurriedly, turning back to his phone.  “I’ve just got a customer on the line so I’ll - “

“Of course,”  Ned smiled faintly, but it didn’t hide the troubled look on his face, and Ian winced internally.  The Director nodded to his colleagues and they moved on.  

_Shit._  Of all the people to catch him doing something… well, Ian didn’t even know what the word would be.  What he did know was he needed to watch his back around Ned.  The man wasn’t the squeaky clean happy family man he pretended to be.  Ian knew this far too well, considering the three month affair they’d had after Ned walked into the club where Ian was dancing one night.

It had been good for a while, flattering to have someone want him, the excitement of sneaking around for secret dates, sex in expensive hotel rooms, even creeping into Ned’s office together from time to time to see what they could get away with behind closed blinds, but soon shame began to leech into every moment they spent together.  Especially considering Ned’s wife, Candy, also worked at their call center, one of the upper level managers.  She’d always been decent to Ian; instrumental, in fact, at helping him to get his job as a favor to Lip. There quickly came a point where he couldn’t handle the guilt any more.  

Ned had seemed to take it well when Ian broke it off, but lately there’d been a certain edge in his former lover’s interactions with him that had Ian worried.  He’d promised Ned he’d never tell, had every intention of keeping that promise, but he had wondered lately if Ned was worried anyway.  Gossip spread through places like this like wildfire; one hint of Ian and Ned ever got out and Candy would hear about it within a day, and the head of the company not long after.  Of course, Ian had been accused of being paranoid before but he couldn’t help but wonder if Ned wasn’t rather happy about Ian’s reputation as being some unstable freak.  Would make it a lot easier to discredit him if word ever really did get out.

Right after lunch, an IM popped up on Ian’s screen.  It was from Amanda, the HR rep.   _Can you come see me in my office, please?_  Ian sighed loudly.  Looked like maybe his suspicions weren’t that far off the mark.

A few minutes later, Amanda was waving him in as he hesitated in her office doorway, talking on her desk phone.

“Sorry about that,” she said as she hung up.  “Thanks for stopping by to see me.”

“No problem,”  Ian shifted uncomfortably.  “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to do a little check in,”  Amanda’s smile reminded him of the bland, meant-to-be-reassuring smiles of the therapists back in Grandview when he was in the hospital.  “How is everything going?”

“Great,”  Ian shrugged.  “Been fine.”

“Good, good…”  Amanda hesitated, gesturing for him to sit down before she continued.  “Listen, Ian, some people have voiced concerns to me.  I’ve been told that perhaps you've been showing signs of stress, acting distracted, talking to yourself…”

Ian stared at a corner of her desk, unable to meet her eyes.  He could feel the heat rising in his face, muscles tightening.  She was still speaking, but he was blocking out her words now, listening to his therapist’s voice inside his head, telling him to breathe.

“Ian?”  Amanda’s voice broke through his internal chanting.

“Everyone gets stressed around here.  Everyone has distractions.  Everybody talks to themselves sometimes,” Ian burst out.  “What’s so special about me?  I mean, do you ever walk up and down the rows out there and hear what people say to themselves or each other?  Somebody yells they’d rather shoot themselves in the head then listen to their customer one more minute and everyone around them laughs.  Or they talk about how they’d love to reach through the phone and punch them in the face.  Nobody takes that seriously!”

“I understand that, Ian,”  Amanda answered quietly.  “But we have to be honest here.  Not everyone has the same...difficulties that you have.  We have to consider what’s happened in your past.”

“I’ve never hurt another person in my entire life,”  Ian raised his head to look directly at her.    “You know that not everyone here can say that.  And you’re not hauling them into your office every time they mutter under their breath, are you?’

He hadn’t realized he had stood up, that his voice was raised, until Amanda stood up too, raising her hands in a position of surrender.  “Ian.  Calm down, please.”

Great. He’d done it now.  Ian took a deep breath, and slumped into his seat.   _Fuck_.  He was fired for sure.  Fiona was going to be so disappointed…  God.  These last few months, it had felt like everything was coming together for him.  He felt better, more stable, than he ever had before in his life.  He had been feeling, for the first time, like he might actually make it, have a shot of a future where he could take care of himself.  Working at Bergeron had been a big part of that, and now he’d blown it.  He was disgusted with himself - couldn’t he have tried harder?  Done a better job of at least pretending to be normal?

Amanda had sat back down as well, surveying him for a long moment across her desk.  Despite her suit and her all business square glasses, she suddenly looked much younger, and Ian was suddenly reminded that she wasn’t much older than him.  In fact, she’d dated his brother Lip for a while.

“You’re right,”  she said finally and Ian blinked in surprise.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you feel singled out.”

“Well, you did,”  Ian stared at his shoes, afraid if he met her eyes he might do something really fucking stupid, like explode again.

“I know.  Look, Ian, the fact is, people have their prejudices.  I’d like to say that I’m not one of them but I think I just made it clear that I’m no exception.  It’s going to take a while.  You’re doing great here, you really are.  Just give it time.”

“It’s been eight months,”  Ian said, and he couldn’t hide his bitterness.  Of course his co-workers wouldn’t bother to see him as anything but Headcase Boy, a ticking time bomb, after only eight months.  After all, his own family still saw him that way.

Amanda sighed.  “Ian, have you ever thought that maybe you’re not making it easy for anyone to see you any differently?  I haven’t missed the fact that you don’t socialize with anyone.  Sitting in the corner with your head down talking to yourself is perhaps not the best way to open yourself up to being approached.”

Ian’s face flamed again, matching the rush of anger flaring inside.  Easy for her to say - just lift up his head and talk.  Like that was instantly going to make everyone here forget that he was a freak.

After a moment, Amanda spoke again, her voice gentle.  “Let’s make a deal, OK?  I promise not to call you in here again unless I’ve got a very good reason.  And in return, you promise me that if you do need anything, and I mean anything, that you’ll come to me.  That’s what I’m here for.”

“Sure,”  Ian smiled weakly as he stood up and took the hand Amanda offered him.  For a moment he thought maybe he should tell her it wasn’t that easy; she couldn’t treat him as defective one minute and the next tell him that he could count on her to have his back.  But what was the point?  At least she was trying.  

In this life, sometimes, that was all one could ask.  


	2. Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey Milkovich isn't surprised that the quiet kid in the corner needs technical assistance yet again. What's throwing him is how he can't get the guy off his mind...

“You’re late again,” was the first thing Matty said to Mickey when he strolled into the IT office on Tuesday morning, banging the door with its hand-scrawled **IF YOU DON’T HAVE A WORK ORDER TURN AROUND AND WALK AWAY** sign closed behind him.  “I had to cover for you with Lishman.  Told him you were in the john.”

Mickey shrugged.  “Brought you the latest _Southern Bastards_ ,”  he tossed the comic book on Matty’s desk.

“You are forgiven,”  Matty said promptly, picking it up happily.  “Looks like it’s going to be a slow day anyway.  Only have three work orders, and one of them we can’t do anything about until we get the part in.  Total bird day - gonna fly by.”

They were interrupted by the chime of the IM popping up on Matty’s screen.  Matty rolled backwards in his chair to read it and then stood up.  “Gotta go check a station; be right back.”  

“Whose?”  Mickey asked, idly flipping through the stack of work orders.

Matty hesitated.  “Um…”

“Gallagher _again_?”  Mickey stood up, tossing the paperwork at Matty.  “You handle these.  I’m taking this one.”

“No, it’s fine -”  Matty broke off with the look Mickey gave him and sighed in resignation.  “Look, just don’t be a dick to him, OK?”

“I make no promises,”  Mickey grinned.  Ignoring Matty’s worried look, he headed out of the office.

He found Gallagher mindlessly hitting keys, staring at his keyboard in frustration.  His eyes widened when he saw Mickey coming up to him.

“I sent Matty the message,”  he blurted.

“Yeah, you’re supposed to send a work order through your supervisor,”  Mickey dragged the empty chair from the next desk over, forcing Gallagher to move out of his way.  “Hurting my feelings here, Red.  I’m starting to think you don’t enjoy meeting me like this.”

Ian flushed and looked away.  Mickey grinned before turning his attention to the computer.  “So what’s the problem this time?”

“This program keeps popping up,”  Ian gestured at the screen helplessly.  “Don’t know how to get it off and it’s closing all my other programs.”

Mickey frowned when he looked at the display.  Fuck if it wasn’t the login screen for this stupid advanced ordering system some idiot in upper management had purchased after buying into the sales pitch about how it would make Bergeron’s systems so much more efficient.  It had ended up being completely incompatible with their operating system.  Thing was, he and Matty had personally removed it from every single computer in the fucking building; there was no way it should be popping on Gallagher’s now.

“How the hell did this happen?”  he grabbed the keyboard, bringing up the registry.

Ian shrugged.  “I told you.  It doesn’t like me.”

“Yeah, whatever you say,”  Mickey was staring at the screen in astonished frustration.  Sure enough, it was back, the cockroach of computer software, refusing to die.

“Um...do you want me to move to another station?”  Ian asked him, already starting to gather his stuff.

“Ye of little fucking faith, just hold your damn horses.  This’ll only take a minute,”  Mickey was already uninstalling it.  He worked in silence for the next few minutes, then pulled back with a satisfied grunt.  “OK, let it reboot, and it should be fine.”  He pushed himself away from the desk so Ian could sit back in front of the monitor.

“Thanks,”  Ian was still avoiding his eyes.

Mickey watched the kid for a long moment as he hunched over his keyboard, eyes on the resetting monitor but looking like he was a million miles away.  Suddenly, Ian blinked, looking surprised to find Mickey still there.  “Um, I can just...you know, talk to my supervisor if it doesn’t work.  Don’t want to take up any of your time.”

“Yeah, cuz I got so many better things to do,”  Mickey rolled his eyes.  “Just going to make sure it works and then I’ll get out of your hair.  No need to twitch.”  

“OK,”  Gallagher muttered.  Mickey was amused to see him flush.  

“How’s your sister?”  Ian suddenly blurted after several awkward seconds of silence.  

Mickey spun around in his chair, surprised.  “You know Mandy?”

“Yeah, um...we went to high school together.  You know, before she…”  Ian trailed off.  Mickey wondered if he’d seen him wince.  Mandy had ended up dropping out her sophomore year, after she’d gotten pregnant.  It was the catalyst that had started an unstoppable domino effect of epically fucked up proportions for both of them.  The subsequent miscarriage she’d suffered was practically a blessing, as messed up as it was to feel that way, but considering the circumstances…  He scowled, turning away from the unwanted memories, forcing himself to concentrate on what was on the screen instead.

Ian seemed to realize he’d hit a sore spot.  “Sorry,” he muttered. flushing again as he turned away.  Mickey wondered if he was supposed to like looking at the way his pale skin became warm with color.  Probably not.

“No problem.  Mandy’s...she’s OK,”  It wasn’t quite a lie.  He changed the subject. “How’s it going there?”  he gestured at Ian’s screen.  “Jesus, is it always this slow?  It seemed fine yesterday,”  Mickey scowled as he watched Ian trying to get his computer to cooperate.    

“It…”  Ian looked down.  

“Doesn’t like you.  Whatever you say, G.  Just get it done before I qualify for a senior citizen discount.”

“Trying,”  Ian muttered.

They waited in silence for a couple more minutes.  Ian’s programs were opening, but the computer was operating at an excruciatingly slow pace.  Somehow, Mickey didn’t really mind the wait.  He leaned back in his chair, watching Gallagher’s long fingers type on the keyboard, eyes drifting downward to observe how well the redhead’s tight jeans defined his well built legs.  The slight stiffening in his own pants took him by definite surprise.  Jesus.  Since when did he have a thing for ginger-haired pretty boys? Then again, he’d had nothing but his own hand for companionship for months.  In a drought, anything looked good.

He had to admit though, Gallagher wasn’t hard on the eyes at all.  It was weird how he’d never noticed that; if he thought back to the times he’d seen the guy around before, all he could come up with was a silent, hoodie clad figure with his head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone.   But now, being able to actually see him up close...damn.  He had a feeling Gallagher still might look good on the feast side of a feast or famine scenario as well.   _Really_ fucking good.

“I knew you too,”  Ian said suddenly.  He looked surprised at himself, as if he hadn’t really intended to speak.  Quickly, he turned away from Mickey as if he was concentrating on what he was doing, but Mickey could see his ears turning bright red.  “I mean, we used to live in the same neighborhood.  Thought about it after yesterday and I remembered that we were on the same Little League team for a while.”

“Were we now?”  Mickey drawled the words out, partly just to be a dick and partly because he liked the flush of color that infused Ian’s skin when he was uncomfortable.  When Ian just mumbled an inaudible response, Mickey took pity on him.  “Yeah, I remember -”  he suddenly broke off.  He did remember, now that the other man had brought it up.  Remembered that Ian had had a huge fucking meltdown in the middle of a game one day, clutching his head and ranting nonsensically until he’d had to be carried off the field by the coach.  He had never come back to practice after that.  “Not much, though.  I got kicked off the team for pissing on first base,”  Mickey added casually, hoping Ian hadn’t noticed his slip.  The kid looked miserable enough as it was; probably didn’t need to reminded of some public tantrum he’d had when he was eleven on top of it.

Seeming startled at that, Ian looked up, meeting his eyes, and laughed.  “Good for you.”

Mickey grinned back.  Gallagher had a nice laugh.  He wouldn’t mind hearing it again.  Feeling more relaxed now, he scooted his chair closer, and bumped the desk, knocking over a toy football player in the process.  “Look who sold a shit ton of blenders,” he snorted as he picked it up.  

Startled, Ian looked up, eyes widening as he saw what Mickey was holding.

“What the fuck are you supposed to do with this?”  Mickey was asking as he began to casually toss the figure from one hand to another.  “Could have at least given you guys coffee mugs, something you could actually use,” he sent the figure soaring up into the air at that, so high it nearly hit the ceiling before he caught it and sent it flying once more.

“Stop it!”  Ian’s hand flashed out and snatched it when it came back down again.  “You’re freaking him out!”

Mickey guffawed at that. “I'm scaring your toy?"  At Gallagher's stricken expression, his eyebrows began to climb.  "Seriously, I’m starting to think you’re touched in the head, G,”  he meant it jokingly but Ian immediately tensed and turned away, hunching over his keyboard, his shoulders rounded in a very familiar ‘leave me alone’ posture.

“That’s what everybody says,”  the words were so low that Mickey had to strain to hear them.

Confused by Ian’s sudden change in demeanor, Mickey leaned forward, about to say something else, but Ian was already speaking again.   “Everything’s working now.  Thanks for all your help,”  his words were flat and insincere sounding.

“Really?  Because it’s acting slow as fuck.  Why don’t you let me take a look?”  Mickey nudged Ian to get him to move over but Ian flinched almost violently away.  

“No, I gotta get on the phones.  It’s fine.”  

A little disgusted with himself by how much the clear rejection stung, Mickey tried again.  “OK, well, if you don’t want me to do it now, I’ll run another diagnostic on it tonight, see what I can clear up,”  Where had that contrite tone come from anyfuckingway?  

“Don’t bother. I’ll just put in a work order through my supervisor,”  Ian’s voice was flat.

“Whatever,”  Mickey stood up, exasperated.  “Later,”  Resisting the urge to look back, he stalked away without another word.

Back in the IT office, he found Matty absorbed in his comic, and the other man barely looked up as he entered.  “Get it up and running?”

“Sort of,”  Mickey said, more to himself.  Matty was too involved in his reading to follow up, and Mickey turned on his own computer, intending to play a few rounds of Solitaire, kill time before his break.

The game wasn’t enough to keep his mind from drifting back to Ian and the way things had turned sour so quickly.  He didn't see why he should care if he'd hurt Gallagher’s dainty feelings, but it continued to eat at him until finally he balled up an old work order and bounced it off the back of Matty’s head to get his attention.

“What?”  Matty yelped, turning to him.

“So what's the deal with Gallagher?”  he kept his tone casual.

“Ian?”  Matty looked surprised.

“Yeah.  Why's he so fucking moody?”  Mickey swiveled on his chair to face him.

Matty looked surprised.  “You don't know?  I thought everybody knew.”

“C'mon Matty, you know I don't pay attention to fucking office gossip,”  Mickey tapped the desk impatiently.

“Well, he's…”  Matty made a whirling motion next to his ear.  “A head case. Been in and out of hospitals most of his life, from what I hear.  A couple years ago he had a complete breakdown and got sent away for months.  I guess he’s doing better now, probably doped up to the gills.  He only got hired here as a favor to Lip, because the Lishmans liked him so much.”

“Lip’s his brother?  That puffed up piece who used to lord over our asses in here?”  Mickey said in surprise.

“Same last name didn't tip you off on that one?”  Matty grinned.

“Shut the fuck up,” Mickey grumbled, but his mind was on what Matty had just told him.

“You're not going to give him a hard time, right?”  Matty looked anxious again. “He's cool, really.  A little in outer space when you talk to him, maybe.”

“And that’s different from anyone else around here how?”  Mickey questioned.

Matty shrugged and picked his comic book back up again.  After a few seconds, he looked at Mickey over the top of it.  “My band's got a gig downtown this Friday.  Want to come?”

Mickey snorted as he looked over the top of his magazine.  “Somebody’s paying you guys to play?  Is the place run by the hearing impaired?”

Matty looked down.  “Friend of Brent’s dad owns it,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Ah, the sweet smell of nepotism,”  Mickey grinned.  “I’ll think about it.  You gonna get me in without a cover?”

Matty sighed.  “I’ll put you on the guest list,”  he finally grumbled.

“You’d better,”  Mickey grinned.  “Otherwise, you’ll be playing to a fucking empty room.  Bunch of tone deaf jackals.  You ought to make that your new band name.  Least then people would know what they’re in for,”

“Up yours,”  Matty said companionably before brightening. “Hey, I can put Mandy on the guest list too.”

Mickey couldn’t help but laugh.  “Jesus.  You still beating that rotting corpse?  She’d eat you for breakfast, you know that, right?”

Matty shrugged, still smiling.  “Could be a sweet way to go.”

Mickey groaned.  “Whatever.  Look, I’ll see, but don’t expect anything.  She’s not really up for much yet.”

Matty nodded, his smile fading slightly.  “Sure.  Just - you know, maybe it’d be good for her to get and have some fun.”

“Thanks,”  Mickey clapped him on the shoulder.  “I’ll let you know.”

Nodding, Matty spun back around to type a response to another IM that had popped up on his screen, leaving Mickey alone with his thoughts.  Much to his annoyance, they were all about Ian fucking Gallagher still.  Turning over and over in his head what Matty had told him, and feeling more and more like a blue-ribbon winning asshole every time he remembered what he'd said to the guy.

And it was then his eyes lit on the rumbling machine that was sitting on the unused desk in the corner, making ominous grinding noises every few seconds, as it was wont to do when neglected for too long, and he was struck with one hell of a good idea.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO much for your lovely response so far! Every single kudos and comment is so exciting! Hope you continue to enjoy - three more chapters to go! Feedback, as always, is very much appreciated.
> 
> (Southern Bastards is a real series, btw...once again, thank you Google, as I know jack about comics.)
> 
> I can be found at http://avalonia320.tumblr.com/


	3. Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
> 
> ― Friedrich Nietzsche

_Hump Daaaay!!_

Like any other Wednesday, Ian had heard those words called out between his co-workers at least half a dozen times before he’d even made his way to his desk. God, he was sick of the fucking phrase.  All the word ‘hump’ managed to do was remind him about how long it had been since he’d last gotten laid.  Not that he hadn’t had opportunities, but there hadn’t been anyone had caught his interest lately.

Nobody except - Ian nearly knocked his styrofoam cup of coffee over, making Bear yelp in alarm, when Mickey Milkovich’s face popped into his head.  Jesus fucking Christ.  Why him?  Out of anybody, why did Ian have to pick a probably homophobic thug who already thought he was crazy and who would undoubtedly kick his ass all over the place if he knew Ian was panting over him like a dog in heat?

He closed his eyes and sent DO NOT WANT - RETURN TO SENDER messages directly to his nether regions, but the way his dick still twitched whenever he thought Mickey’s name told him that little Ian wasn’t getting the memo.

Doing his best to put this most inconvenient turn of events out of his mind, Ian began the usual morning ritual of signing into his slower than molasses computer.  At first, he didn’t register the squeak of the cart wheels coming up the aisle until an impatient cough had him jumping in his seat.

He turned to find Mickey standing next to him, leaning on a computer cart that held a decrepit looking PC tower and an ominous mass of black cables and plugs.  

“Sign out and power it off,”  Mickey said by way of greeting.

Far too distracted by how diabolically good Mickey was looking in his at least one size too small t-shirt, (and fuck, did the guy own any other color clothing besides black?),he obeyed Mickey’s instructions, powering off his computer before the other man waved him out of the way.

“What is this?”  Finally regaining the power to form words, Ian gestured at the cart as Mickey began disconnecting cables, finally yanking Ian’s computer from its place on his desk and dropping it carelessly on a vacant desk next to them.

“This,” Mickey picked up the tower, which judging by the numerous scratches, dents, and half peeled off band stickers, had seen better days.  Party days, even.  Possibly a rave. “...is Bad Bertha.”

“Excuse me?  You named your computer?  And gave it a gender?”  Ian asked in amazement.  “And you think I'm weird because I said my computer doesn't like me?”

“Well, Bertha doesn’t like anyone,” Mickey shrugged. “Not really my computer either, she just lives in the IT office because no one but me can get her to work.”  

“What makes you think she'll run for me then?”  Ian shoved his hands in his pockets, hoping the slight gasp he’d exhaled when Mickey bent over to slide Bertha into place and begin hooking her up hadn’t been audible.

Mickey shrugged again, plugging in the power.  “Just a hunch.  Even if this doesn't work I'm junking yours out and getting you a replacement.  I’ll just BS some sup into signing off on it.”

Surprise made all of Ian’s words dry up and blow away once more, but Mickey didn’t seem to be waiting for thanks.  He gestured impatiently for Ian to come back and sit down.  “Come on, Gallagher, give her a whirl before I get any older. All this actual work is cutting into my ability to extensively waste time on the company’s dime.”

Ian had serious doubts about whether a computer named Bad Bertha was going to like him any better than the one he’d been using, but he sat back down and started loading his system.  To his surprise, the multiple programs he opened started up right away.  He loaded everything in less than half the time it would have taken him on his other machine.  With growing confidence, he did a test order, marveling at how quick everything processed.

When he had finished testing Bertha out, he looked up to see a small but decidedly smug smile playing around Mickey’s lips.  “What did I tell you, Gallagher?  She may not look like much, but I rebuilt Bertha from scratch myself.  Works like a dream - when she wants to.”

“Guess she just requires a...certain touch,”  Ian said.  His eyes were locked on Mickey’s and he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

“Guess so,”  Mickey said slowly.  He was returning Ian’s gaze just as intensely.  Seconds ticked by and their gazes remained locked onto each other. 

It wasn’t until Jasmine walked by, greeting them cheerily as she passed, that the spell was broken.

“Well, guess that’s it then,”  Was it his imagination or did Mickey seem reluctant to leave?  The dark haired man had his back to Ian, picking up a few stray cords and placing them with unnecessary care onto the cart.  “You know where to find me if you got a problem.”

“Sure,”  Ian moistened his lips nervously, willing himself to say something else, anything, a magical sentence that would keep Mickey somewhere in his orbit and not end this short-lived, 99% imaginary relationship before it had ever started.

But once again, the words played keep-away, dancing somewhere around the back of his brain and refusing to make their way out of his mouth.  

Mickey started to push the cart away and without thinking, Ian reached out and put a hand on his arm to stop him.  A white-hot current of electricity immediately sizzled up his fingers, winding its way across his skin, and he snatched his hand away.

Mickey’s eyes were startled.  Ian could feel his face burning.  God, what the fuck had gotten into him?

“Thanks,” he blurted, at a complete loss to say anything else.  

“Sure,” Mickey nodded, though he still looked slightly dazed.  “Later, Gallagher,”  and without another word, he pushed the cart in front of him and was gone.

There was a quiet chortle to the left.  “Well, _that_ was interesting.”

Ian gritted his teeth before he looked reluctantly at the shelf where Bear sat.  “Don’t even start,” he muttered.

“ _I_ am not the one trying to start something,” there was definite glee in Bear’s voice.  “I’m just a well formed piece of rubber with a rapidly disappearing right eye, and even I could see the ocular fornication going on between you two.”

Ian groaned quietly, rubbing his hand over his face.  “Believe me, it was completely one-sided,” he talked quietly out of the side of his mouth, so any eavesdropping co-workers would take it as nothing more than his usual muttering to himself.  “I can’t believe this.  I must have lost what’s left of my mind for even dreaming about going there.”

" _'There is always some madness in love,'_ "  Football Man said suddenly.

Both Ian and Bear stared at him.  “Where did that come from?”

“Don’t know,” Football Man mused.  “But where does any knowledge come from, truly?”

“From recycled library books, apparently,”  Bear scoffed.  “I can’t believe I have to sit on a shelf next to this yammering putz.”

“Don’t start,” Ian warned.  “I’m kinda on probation right now.  I can’t have you guys distracting me all day.  Just be quiet for a while, OK?  Let me work.”

* * *

 

A few hours later, Ian was cursing himself.  He should have known better than to ask for silence - Bear was nothing if not contrary.  For the last several hours it had been voicing increasingly agitated complaints about the state of its speedily disappearing ink job.  By the time Ian’s lunch hour neared, Bear was shouting at the top of non-existent lungs.

“It’s only MY EYE!” Bear was yelling as Ian ended another call that he’d barely been able to hear.  “Who needs depth perception?  Not me!  Not like I’m going anywhere! I have to spend my life on this desk listening to you try to crawl up one customer’s ass after another, and maybe actually being able to see is something of a comfort to me, but what does that matter?  It’s not like I’m actually worth the thirty seconds it would take of your precious time to COLOR IT BACK IN!”

“Jesus, enough already!”  Ian hit the button on his handset that indicated he was taking a break.  “You know we’re not supposed to have pens at our desk, since Lishman thinks we’ll all steal credit card numbers if we can write them down. I’ll take you outside and fix your eye while I eat.”  

“ _Finally_!”  Bear managed to look incredibly smug for an inanimate object with no actual ability to move its features.  Sighing loudly, Ian shoved the bear in the pocket of his hoodie, and after a second’s hesitation, picked up Football Man too.  No point in excluding him just so Bear could lord it over him later.  

A few minutes later, Ian sat down at the picnic table that someone had thoughtfully put out back of their building, probably with the optimistic notion of making it a nice smoke/break area before the overpowering stench of the nearby dumpsters made that highly unappealing.  Despite the smell, Ian ate lunch out there as often as weather permitted.  It was far preferable than sitting in the overcrowded lunch room, dodging strange looks and barely disguised innuendos.

He set Bear and Football Man on the bird-shit splattered table and pulled his contraband pen out of his pocket.  He was about to get to work when Bear emitted a yowl of protest.  “That's black!  You can't use black ink!  My eyes are _blue_!”

“I don't have a blue pen,” Ian snapped in exasperation.  “So it's either black or you can just stay one eyed,” he eyed the bear irritably. “Well?”

“Why don’t you just draw me an eyepatch and complete my humiliation?”  Bear demanded.  “What a week I’m having! First I get stuck with Sawdust Socrates and now I have to be all wonky-eyed.  Is there no end to the indignities that this existence will subject me to?”

“Hey,” A rapidly becoming familiar voice broke into Bear’s diatribe.  Ian’s heart leapt when he looked up to see Mickey straddling the bench on the other side of the table, tossing his own lunch sack on the table.

“Um...hi,”  he hated how breathy his voice sounded.  “I - uh...haven’t seen you out here before.”

Mickey shrugged.  “Usually eat in the IT room,” he pulled a plastic wrapped sandwich out of the bag.  Ian wanted to ask him what was different about today but Mickey was looking at him curiously now.  “Whatcha got there?”

“Oh,” Ian said dumbly, looking down at Bear still clutched in his grip.  He felt himself redden.  “I brought it out to - um the eyes...I gotta color them back in,” he waited for Mickey to snicker like he had the day before, but the other man just looked at Bears faded ink and nodded.

“Looks like,” he agreed cheerfully, unwrapping his sandwich.  “Don't let me stop you,” he added after a moment when Ian just continued to stare at him.  

“ ‘K’,  Ian felt himself blush all over again.  At this rate he’d think he wouldn’t have enough blood left to rush to his groin, but the reaction Down Under to Mickey’s presence told him quite a different tale.  At least Bear’s continued grumbling was a welcome distraction.  “Do you, um, have a blue pen, by chance?”

“Think so,” Mickey stood up, dug in his pocket, and pulled out a chewed plastic bic.  He tested the color on a fingertip and held it out to Ian for inspection.  “See?  Blue.”

Ian almost forgot to take the pen Mickey was offering to him; he was too busy looking at his hands again.  Mickey was wearing yet another pair of fingerless gloves; these ones were decorated with dia de los muertos style skulls.  He had to have quite a collection; Ian couldn’t help but imagine Mickey lovingly hanging his NY Fashion Week-sized hand wardrobe up on tiny, doll sized hangers.

“Thanks,” Ian took the pen and hunched over Bear, trying to act casual. It didn’t help that his hand was visibly shaking.  

“Hey!” Bear snapped.  “Do you mind?  An eye is supposed to be _round_ , lackwit.”

“You need some help with that?”

Ian snapped his head up to see Mickey watching him.  The dark haired man indicated the bear.  “Let me give it a try.”

Beyond words, Ian just stared, wondering if he was serious.  After a moment of no response, Mickey leaned over and gently pulled Bear and the pen from Ian’s hands.

“It's um, my medication,”  Ian managed to blurt out after several seconds, feeling the need to explain.  “It makes my hands shake.”

“Really? What kind of medication?”  Mickey eyed him closely.  When Ian didn’t answer, he raised one of those amazingly eloquent eyebrows again.  “I asked around about you.  Word is, you’re a few fries short of a Happy Meal, in and out of the rubber room since birth, gotta take a pharmacy full of pills so you don’t go on the rampage like Godzilla stomping Tokya.  Is that right?”

Ian stared down at the table, the butterflies that had been zooming around in his stomach just moments again turning to stone and weighing him down.  “You always listen to rumors?”

“No,” Mickey said flatly.  “That’s why I’m asking you.”

Taken aback, Ian looked up involuntarily, to see Mickey’s gaze fixed on him.  The brief impulse to walk away was dissolved the second he fixated on the blue of his eyes.  “The word’s half right.  Maybe a third,” he took a deep breath, unable to believe he was actually discussing this, and with Mickey Milkovich, of all people.  “I do take mood stabilizers.  I’ve only been in the hospital once though.  But yeah...I guess you could say I’m a little -” he shrugged.  “I dunno.  Nuts.  That’s what most people say.”

“Yeah?”  Mickey bent back over Bear, continuing the job he’d begun on his eye. “So what’s causing all the bats to flap around your belfry?  Your docs got a name for it?”

Ian was surprised by the question; for most people, ‘crazy’ was all they needed to know.  “Kinda,” he answered after a moment.  “I didn’t talk until I was four, so the doctors told my parents that I was autistic.  After that, I guess I acted alright for a while, so it was developmentally delayed.   Then when I was in grade school, things just got kind of - loud,”  he touched his head.  “One doctor said I was schizophrenic.  Another one said bi-polar.  Every time I went to see someone new, they changed it up and put me on different medication.  It did all sorts of shit to me; if I wasn’t fucked up before, I sure as hell was when they got through with me,” he stopped then, wondering if he’d already said too much.

“And?”  Mickey prompted after a moment.

Ian took a deep breath and plunged ahead.  “By the time I got to high school, I learned how to fake it a lot better.  Just stayed to myself, tried not to let anyone know about stuff I saw or heard that wasn’t...you know, real.  But I couldn’t hide it all the time.  My older sister was trying to take care of all of us because our parents - well, let’s just say I’m not the only one with issues.  I was a huge burden on her.  Everything just started to fall apart,” he thought he could end it there, but Mickey looked up from Bear with an expression that said he knew the story wasn’t finished.  

Ian steeled himself. “I mean, being a teenager already sucks.  You’re trying to figure out all this shit about yourself at the same time the world and everyone around you is telling you a million different ways you should be.  It was bad enough to have so much screaming in my head all the time; but when I figured out I was - “  he broke off again, not ready to go there yet.  “Anyway, a couple of years ago I ended up downing a couple bottles of pills.  That was when I got sent to Grandview.  It’s a psychiatric hospital.  I spent almost six months there.”

“Shit,”  Mickey was several shades paler than he had been a few minutes earlier.  “Man, that’s a hell of a suckass ride,” he bit his lip.  “Sorry.  Guess I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s OK,”  Ian told him, and to his own surprise, he meant it.  “Seriously.  I mean, I guess I’d rather have people ask then just talk shit and make up their own stories.  You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I’ve heard people say.  Gotta say the Godzilla raging through Tokyo thing is a new one, though.”

Mickey chuckled at that.  “I may have exaggerated just slightly,” his face sobered.  “So what about now?  How are you doing?”

Ian considered that for a moment.  “Good,” he said after a moment.  “Unspecified non-psychotic mental disorder.  That’s my latest diagnosis.  I mean, I guess I’ve made my peace with it, with knowing I’m never going to be - normal.  Plus I’m off most of the medication I used to be on. Sometimes I feel like it was half the problem.  I still see a shrink once a month to check up and I have this therapist I go to every other week that’s got me doing meditation and chanting and all sorts of bizarre shit.  She’s kinda weird.  If I took her in to see my shrink, he’d probably diagnose her.  But I really like Laurel.  Like, I can tell her anything and she doesn’t write me a prescription every time I have a bad day.”

“That’s good.  Really good.  And congratulations on being all non-psychotic and shit,” Mickey grinned as he handed Bear back to Ian.  “All done.”  Ian saw that not only had he colored in Bear’s right eye, but he’d touched up the left as well, and they were now two perfectly symmetrical pools of dark blue.

“Thanks,” Ignoring Bear’s melodramatic cries of _‘I can see again!  It’s a miracle!  A beautiful, beautiful miracle!’_  he set it down next to Football Man, who was staring dreamily into the distance.

Now that his hands were free, Mickey went back to eating his lunch, opening a sandwich and pulling it into little chunks before popping each bite into his mouth.  He seemed almost as restless with his hands as Ian was.  His fingers were constantly in motion, looking as if they were ever-searching for something to grasp.

“There a problem?” Mickey asked suddenly, looking up, and Ian realized he’d been staring.

“No.  I just uh - I don’t usually tell people this stuff,” Ian knew he was dangerously close to babbling.  “It’s kinda weird.”

Mickey snorted at that.  “ _You’re_ kinda weird, Gallagher,” his mischievous grin melted any offense that Ian might have taken to that.  “It’s cool though.  We’ve all got our damage.”

“Really?”  Ian leaned forward.  “So what’s yours then?”  he spoke the words without thinking them through first, and was instantly glad he had, because he definitely wanted to know.

Mickey set down the remains of his sandwich at that.  He looked a little startled, then contemplative.  After a moment, his lips parted as if to speak, then it was as if an invisible shade had been snapped down over his face, hiding his true expression.  “Getting close to that time, G.  Gotta head back soon.  You might want to eat while you can,”  he indicated Ian’s untouched lunch.

“Some other time then?”  Ian kept his eyes locked on Mickey, hearing the challenge in his own voice.

“Yeah,” Mickey wasn’t smiling now, which Ian hoped meant he was as serious as Ian wanted him to be.  “Another time.”

“I’m going to hold you to it,”  Ian kept his voice low, his eyes fixed on Mickey.  For a moment they held each other’s eyes, a very similar moment to earlier on the floor.  This time it was Ian who dropped his gaze first, figuring he actually had better eat something before heading back.  

“You gotta tell me one thing now though,” he said as he pulled open his own sandwich.  “What’s with the gloves?”

“Oh, these? Cover up. Lishman doesn't like my tats,” With a flourish Mickey pulled off the gloves to reveal tattoo’d letters on the base of each finger, spelling out fuck u-up when he put his fists together.

“Nice,” Ian grinned, at the same time all too aware that the sight of the the crudely drawn letters on Mickey’s bare skin was again causing all the blood to leave his upper extremities and rush downwards.  He was happy when Mickey didn’t put the gloves back on right away, instead setting them down on the table and picking at the rest of his sandwich.  

The beeping of Ian’s cell phone timer broke into his reverie, an unhappy reminder that his lunch hour was drawing to a close.  Reluctantly, he stood up, balling up his lunch bag and reaching for Bear and Football Man.  “I guess I’ll see you around,” he cursed himself as he struggled to come up with something better than that, something to tell Mickey that he wanted to see him again, wanted to talk to him, hell he’d take sitting across from him for an hour, just staring.

“Sure,” Mickey smiled back and stood up, grabbing his own empty sack, and with one last sweep of those searing blue eyes, he was gone, disappearing through the back entrance.

 _“Someone’s got a cr-ush!”_  Bear’s teasing voice sing-song'd from his pocket.

“Shut up,” Ian muttered.  For once, Bear listened, going instantly silent.  It wasn’t like that helped, because it was still true.  Ian was crushing in an all consuming, heart-drawing, deep-sighing way, on Mickey fucking Milkovich.

Now what the hell was he supposed to do?


	4. Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”  
> ― Criss Jami

God, it was hot.

Mickey opened his eyes, too soaked in a pool of his own sweat to sleep anymore, even if the barely muted dawn light told him it was way too early to get up for work.  Even after he threw the damp sheet off of him, the heat still curled around him in a miserable embrace, making him long for a cool shower.  He was too uncomfortable even to jerk one off,  though his sleep had been filled with dreams of a certain redhaired, green-eyed man in increasingly explicit scenarios.

When he got up to make his way to the bathroom, he realized exactly why it was so hot.  Mandy had apparently turned the heat on sometime the night before, despite the fact that it was fucking summer and in the 90s every day.  Gritting his teeth at the thermostat, he turned it down and stomped into the living room to remind her just who was paying the heating bill.

He found Mandy asleep on the couch, a heavy blanket tucked around her.  It had fallen part way off to reveal her far too bony shoulders.  She turned restlessly in her sleep as he watched, and now he could see her prominent cheekbones.  His brief anger was immediately snuffed out.  Mandy was cold all the time these days, no matter how hot it was, and looking at her, he could understand why.  Not a single layer of fat left on her to keep her warm.

At the same time, he was painfully reminded of just why she was sleeping in the living room.  Mandy hadn’t slept in her bedroom for years now.  He’d offered to switch rooms with her, thinking it was just the bad memories that prevented her from being in there, but Mandy couldn’t bear to sleep in any bedroom, protesting that she felt confined.  Truth was, she couldn’t relax in any room that didn’t have a clear exit to outside, a means of escape.  Gail, the social worker that had been assigned to them after everything went down, said it was post traumatic stress disorder or something.  She’d tried to tell Mickey that he had it too, and he had told her to go fuck herself, all the while knowing she was right.

Hurrying his steps as if he could physically put distance between himself and the memories, he turned towards the bathroom to take that cold shower.  He was pushing open the door when he’d realized how badly he’d miscalculated. The squeak of the door instantly took him back to that day he was trying so hard.

_He’d tried to open this same door but something was blocking it.  He’d finally managed to shove it open enough to find it was Mandy, crumpled on the bathroom floor, sobbing.  The pregnancy test, with its life shattering blue window, still lay in open view on the counter.  He’d turned then, to see his father at the end of the hallway, staring, and he just knew.   _

_His father had been ten feet and two seconds out of his reach.  The baseball bat had been propped in the corner as he passed, winking up at him, just waiting._

_Taking that extra second to grab it before he reached Terry was the decision that changed everything._

Abruptly, Mickey changed directions, heading to the kitchen.  He tried to be quiet as he pulled out pans from the cupboard but apparently he was not as successful as he hoped, because when he turned to turn the stove on, Mandy was standing right next to him.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled, still looking half asleep.  

“Making us breakfast,” he informed her, opening the fridge.

“Making me breakfast,” she corrected with a wry smile.  “You’ve been stuffing me like a fucking Christmas turkey ever since I got out.  You don’t have to baby me so damn much, you know.”

“Not,” he instantly protested, tossing sausage links in the sizzling frying pan.  “I just - I want to get your strength back up.” _In more ways than one,_ he admitted to himself.

“Mickey,”  Mandy began, then stopped, shaking her head.  She slumped next to the counter.  “My new sponsor’s coming over today.”

“Good,”  Mickey poured pancake batter onto the second frying pan.  “Do me a favor though.  Don’t fuck this one.  It never ends well.”

Mandy snorted.  “After three trips to rehab, I think they know not to give me a male sponsor.  It’s some Russian chick.  Svetlana, I think her name is,” she walked back to the living room, picking up the comforter and wrapped it around herself.  

“Cool,”  Mickey scooped the pancakes onto a platter, followed by the sausage.  

Once he was done cooking, they both took their full plates back to the couch, eating in companionable silence.

“How’s work?”  Mandy said finally.  Mickey was relieved by her empty plate; the first few days she’d been home, she’d barely eaten anything.  Barely spoke, for that matter, just sat on the couch watching hour after hour of mindless television.  In a way, it kind of reminded him of Gallagher and the way the guy seemed to hide in corners all the time.

“It’s work,” he told her.  “Hey,” he continued, unable to help himself.  “You remember Ian Gallagher?  Redhead?  Used to live in our neighborhood?”

Mandy frowned, thinking, then broke into a smile.  “Yeah.  We went to school together.  Teachers used to partner us up all the time, because the other kids gave him shit.  Everyone said he was crazy.”

“Yeah,”  Mickey shifted.  “People at work say that too.”

“Fuck those assholes,”  Mandy glowered, snatching a piece of bacon from his plate.  “He was sweet.  I liked him.  Probably the only one I wouldn’t punch in the face if I actually showed up at one of those fucking reunion things.”

Mickey was silent, thinking.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mandy studying him carefully.  “Oh my God.  Are you interested?  Because you’re _never_ interested.  Seriously?”

“Fuck off,”  Mickey stood up.  “He’s just a guy I work with.”  

“Sure,”  Mandy’s face remained skeptical as she settled back on the couch, pulling the comforter around her once more.  “Well, bring your ‘just some guy from work’ over some time.  I’d like to see him again.  Would be nice to hang with someone from back then, someone who doesn’t know  -”  Abruptly she fell silent, shifting restlessly.  Her sleeve rolled up slightly, revealing the still healing track marks that marred her skin.  Mickey quickly looked away.

“I gotta get ready for work.  You going to be OK?”  Mickey stood up, looking at his sister hesitantly.

“Yes,”  Mandy’s voice was laced with impatience.  “You don’t have to worry that the second you step out the door I’m going to find the nearest dealer and go plummeting right off the fucking wagon, you know.”

Knowing that pointing out to his sister that she’d done exactly that in the past, more than once, was pure folly, Mickey kept his mouth shut.  Just before he reached his bedroom door, he turned back to her.  “Hey, Matty’s band is playing downtown on Friday night.  Want to go?”

Mandy looked up at him in surprise.  “Go out?” she asked in mock astonishment.  “Jailer, are you unlocking my cell?”

“I’m not keeping you prisoner, Mandy,”  Mickey folded his arms across his chest, looking away.  “I just want you to be OK.”

Mandy stood up.  In a few steps she’d crossed the room to him.  “I will be,” she said quietly, standing right in front of him until he was forced to look at her.  “I mean, I know I’ve said that before.  But this time, I think I really will.”

“I know you will,”  Mickey told her.  And silently, he promised that he was going to do everything in his power to make that be true.

* * *

“Mrs. Huntington, again, I apologize,”  Ian sat slumped at his desk, chin resting on his hand as he listened to the angry voice on the other end of his line.  “I realize that the color theme of your daughter’s bridal shower was creme.  And I understand as well that receiving decorations that were more vanilla than creme on the color spectrum was unduly traumatic,” he rolled his eyes as he spoke.  “However, we’ve already agreed to send the correct items and refund all your shipping charges.  I don’t see what else we can do… No, Mrs. Huntington, it is not false advertising if we describe a color as -” he was cut off again.

“Bet she threatens to get a lawyer next,”  Bear chimed in from the upper shelf.

Ian made a face at it, then sighed as the woman continued to complain loudly.  “Of course, Mrs. Huntington, you are free to see an attorney if you so choose, however - ‘

“Called it!”  Bear chortled gleefully.  

“In just these few short days here, I have discovered that consumers are imminently predictable,”  Football Man sighed in morose agreement.

Ian muted his phone and leaned towards the corner of his desk.  “Can I have a little less commentary from The Psychic Friends Network please?”

A throat cleared next to him impatiently.  Ian looked up, surprised to see Mickey there, swinging a crumpled paper bag.  “Lunchtime, G,” he said impatiently

Simultaneously filled with delight that Mickey had sought him out and crushing disappointment that he had to refuse, Ian nodded ruefully towards his phone.  “Can't,” he sighed. “I'm going to be stuck on this call for a while.”

“That so?” Mickey raised his eyebrows and then punched the release button on the handset.  Mrs. Huntington was cut off mid-squawk and Ian was left listening to a dial tone.

“Shame about your technical difficulties,” Mickey spoke with mock solemnity. “Should probably have someone look into that.”

Grinning, Ian punched out and jumped up, following Mickey down the aisle and out the back door.

“So got any plans for the weekend?”  Ian asked as they sat down at the same table they’d been at the day before.  He waved away the bag of chips Mickey offered to him. “Like, uh, with your girlfriend or something?”  Jesus.  He was as subtle as a piano falling on a cartoon coyote.  Only thing that would make his fishing expedition more obvious would be if he was wearing a hat full of hooks and carrying a pole.

Mickey’s eyes widened at Ian’s question, and he stopped chewing abruptly.  After a second of swallowing and coughing, he cleared his throat. “A girlfriend?  Me? You really don't listen to the office scuttlebutt, do you?”

“People talk about you?  I think they’d be scared,” Ian smirked slightly.

“They talk about everyone around here, Gallagher.  Nobody’s got anything better to do,”  Mickey retorted.

“Guess not,”  Ian leaned forward.  “So what do they say?’

Mickey just grinned at that.  “You’d probably be surprised.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”  Ian pressed him.

Mickey just continued to grin.  “Means I don’t have a girlfriend, for one.”  

Ian would have felt annoyed at Mickey’s rather flexible dodging of the question, but that smile was doing things to him.  Fucking hell.  He could deal with the fact that he had a 24/7 hard on for Milkovich these days, but the fact that he’d never realized before how goddamn _cute_ Mickey was just blew his mind.  

“What about you?”  Mickey was asking him now.  “What do you usually do on weekends?”

Ian hesitated.  “I...um,” Shit.  Back to stammering again.  “Fridays are my only nights off, so I usually just hang out at home, try to relax.”

Mickey looked at him, confused. “Don't you have weekends off?”

“Here, I do,” Ian confirmed. “I have another job, Saturday and Sunday nights only.”

“Oh yeah?  Doing what?” Mickey took another bite as he waited.

Ian hesitated, long enough to build up some serious anticipation, before seeming to decide to answer.  He took a deep breath to steel himself, and then decided to plunge right in.  Fuck it; if he was going to scare Mickey off, he might as well get it over with.

“I work at Goodfellas, in Boystown.”

“Goodfellas?”  He could see Mickey thinking it over, and then his eyebrows nearly shot off his forehead.  “Isn’t that a gay club?  Are you like a bouncer or something?”

“Or something,” Ian confirmed quietly.

Mickey nearly choked on his mouthful of chips at that, and Ian had to pound on his back to clear his airway.

“ _No fucking way!_  You're a stripper?”  Mickey managed to gasp out after a few seconds.    

“Yeah,” Ian held Mickey’s gaze steadily, despite the rising heat in his cheeks.  “I mean, not exactly a stripper; there’s costumes, but - yeah.”

 “What the fuck you do that for?”  Mickey demanded now.  He was looking at Ian in utter astonishment, as if the other man had suddenly grown an extra head, but he wasn’t calling him names and storming off, or kicking his ass.  This was going better than he could have hoped.  Then again, with the way Mickey had reacted yesterday, he suddenly felt ashamed that he'd expected any less.  From the beginning, he'd just assumed that Mickey was the thuggish boor that neighorhood rumor had made him out to be.  He'd done the same thing to him that everyone did to Ian - heard whispers and assumed they were true.  It was more than apparent that Mickey was so much more than a stereotype, and it only made him want to get to know him more.  

Plus, it was a fair question.  Fiona had asked him the same thing more than once.  It wasn’t for the money, though it was nice.  He’d tried to explain it to her, but he didn’t know how to say it properly.  The thing was, for two nights a week, Ian got to be someone else. For those short hours, no one thought of him as a whackjob or someone to be pitied. When he took his clothes off, people stared at him reverently, bought him drinks, and competed to be in his company in a way the lonely kid in the corner he’d once been, and still was most days, could never have imagined.  Ian wasn't naive; he knew what they wanted.  He was a piece of meat and he fucking loved it.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to try to explain all that to Mickey, or even that he could any better than he’d managed to explain it to Fiona.  “It’s good money,” he settled for saying.  “Also, it makes it easy to get laid when I feel like it.”  There.  It was all out there.   _He_ was out.  Let the chips fall where they may.

“Oh!  So it’s like that, huh?”  Mickey sat back and uncapped the bottle of water he’d pulled out of his bag.

“Yeah,” Ian watched him warily, but the shock had drained out of Mickey’s face now, and he looked merely curious.

“And you think you gotta go all the way to Boystown and shake your ass in order to get laid?”  Mickey’s blindingly adorable grin was back in play now.  “Seems like an awful lot of work to me.  Maybe you should be looking closer to home,”  he recapped his bottle and leaned forward.  “So, Gallagher, tell me -  what's a guy gotta do to catch your eye?”

The way he said those last words made tingles go up and down Ian’s spine.  Was Mickey actually _flirting_ with him?

It took him a few seconds for Ian to catch his breath, but finally he managed to force out, “I dunno.  Be nice to me, I guess.”

“Be nice to - Jesus Christ, G, that's all someone’s gotta do to get in your pants?  Setting the bar pretty fucking low, aren't you?”  Mickey didn’t look nearly as amused now, his brow furrowed as he stared back at him.

“That’s not all,”  Ian said defensively.  “I mean, I like other stuff.  I don’t just - it’s not like I go for every guy that comes on to me…”  he broke off in confusion.

Mickey was chuckling.  “That so?” his gaze was contemplative as he looked Ian up and down.  “So, Gallagher, tell me about these costumes,”  his eyes lingered on Ian’s hips before traveling back up Ian’s torso, and if he’d lost all touch with reality he didn’t ever want it back.  For there couldn’t be any mistaking it now: Mickey was _definitely_ flirting with him.  

Ian moistened his lips.  “Well,” he said, and he knew his voice was noticeably husky, “There’s not much to them, literally.  Usually just different kinds of shorts, lots of sequins, a tie here or there.  Lately I’ve been wearing these gold booty shorts.”

“Gold booty shorts,”  Mickey looked mesmerized by this for a moment, then abruptly he stood up.  “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

 _I hope it’s your dick_ , Ian thought to himself - in fact, it was only a timely bite of his own tongue that kept him from blurting the words out loud.

He followed Mickey around the side of the building, both of them throwing away their half eaten lunches on the way, and Mickey stopped by a side door that Ian had never seen anyone go in or out of.  He’d always assumed it was a closet for janitorial supplies or something.

Mickey dug in his pocket, producing a key ring and unlocking the door.  Ian followed him inside and Mickey shut the door behind them.  “This is a storage room of sorts,” he explained to Ian, flipping a switch and flooding the small room they were standing in with dim light.  All manner of things were piled around; janitorial supplies, like Ian had expected, but also metal shelves lined the walls, crammed with what looked like an ode to every computer ever built since 1987.  “We stash all the broken PCs back here and use them for parts when we need to.  Most of the parts for Bad Bertha came from here,”

“Fascinating,”  Ian murmured politely.  If this dusty ode to electronics past was all Mickey wanted him to see, he’d rather they go back to the table and resume their flirtationship.  “So what did you want to show me?”

“The lack of security cameras, for one.”

The next thing he knew, Mickey was kissing him.

It happened so fast that it took his breath away.  Mickey’s tongue was in his mouth, and that was his body that was pressed up against Ian’s, and that sure as fuck was his hand that was tugging Ian’s shirt out of his waistband before lightly trailing across his bare torso, and how the hell was this actually happening right now?

He was so lost in the moment that he felt an almost physical pain when Mickey pulled away after a minute, panting hard.  

“Hey, G, you into this?”  he asked, a trifle on the belated side, and it did Ian’s ego good to see that Mickey looked like it had been just as difficult for him to pull away. “I mean, you kinda got me going there, imagining those gold booty shorts, but I don't want you to feel like you gotta -”

Ian answered that question by slamming Mickey none too gently against the nearest shelf.  It rattled as their bodies hit it, and Ian was pretty sure the low groan Mickey emitted as he pressed his mouth to his again once again wasn’t one of pain.

Ian wasn’t sure he’d ever gone full into full makeout mode before; sure, he’d kissed guys often enough, but it was usually just a stepping stone to getting naked.  Not that he didn’t hope that was where this was going, and kinda quick, before he came in his pants like a fourteen year old at his first dirty movie.  But kissing Mickey, just kissing him, letting his tongue explore the other man’s mouth while his hands roamed across his face, through his hair, and wrapped around his neck to pull him closer wasn’t something he was in hurry to stop doing.

It hadn’t been quite seven minutes in heaven when a highly unwelcome, intrusive thought came knocking on Ian’s fevered brain.  He tried to shrug it off, but it wouldn’t go away. “Hey,” he pulled back slightly, mumbling against Mickey’s mouth.  “It’s just that I don’t, you know, have anything with me,”  he stared at Mickey significantly until understanding lit the other man’s eyes.  “Do you?”  he asked, unable to mask the hopeful tone.

Mickey snorted.  “Have any rubbers?  Hell no - I don’t usually plan to hook up with guys at work.”  

 _I used to_ , Ian thought himself, wistfully thinking of the handful of Trojans he used to keep hidden in his desk drawer.  He hadn’t needed to think about anything like that for a while.  

“Maybe - “  Mickey began, starting to pull away, but Ian tugged him back.

“We don’t need them for everything,” he let his fingers trail across the waistband of Mickey’s jeans before he slipped open the top button.  Mickey sucked in a deep breath as Ian’s hand slid inside and flinched violently as Ian’s fingers closed around his shaft.

“God, your hand is cold, Gallagher,”  he whispered, falling back against the shelf, his eyes closed, expression rapturous.

“You want me to stop?”  Ian teased, squeezing Mickey’s dick lightly before he moved his fingers in one long, slow stroke and Mickey gasped in response.

“Hell the fuck no,” he groaned, sucking in air.  Ian’s fingers began an upward glide and Mickey moaned, then abruptly straightened up.  “Actually, yeah,”  he whispered, a light layer of sweat dotting his face.  “Or I’m going to be finished before we’ve even started properly.”

Ian didn’t want to let go but Mickey extracted his hand and gently pushed him back until it was Ian who had his back pressed up against the shelf.  “I don’t want to miss this, Gallagher,” Mickey leaned forward to whisper in his ear before his fingers sought Ian out, moving downwards and sliding inside his jeans to caress him.

“Oh, fuck,”  Ian groaned, as Mickey’s fingers teased the tip of his cock lightly before circling him fully.  

“I’ll say,”  Mickey sounded just as breathless.  “I had no idea _this_ is what you were packing, Big G.  I think I’m going to need to take a closer look.”

“Wait, wait…” Ian managed to croak when Mickey sank to his knees in front of him, reaching for his zipper.  “I thought - I mean we shouldn't without -”

“Relax, G,” Mickey’s grin was positively wicked.  “I'm just getting things warmed up, a little sneak peek of _coming_ attractions.”

Any protest Ian had been about to make was lost when Mickey swallowed him whole with an ease that said this definitely wasn't his first time at the rodeo.  Ian’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head. “Oh fuck,” he hissed for the second time.  It should be illegal for something to feel this good and he didn't want Mickey to stop, not ever, except that if it didn't stop he was going to lose it, right there and then.

But Mickey seemed to understand just how far he could take it. He was in his feet again and his mouth was on Ian’s and Ian could taste himself.  Mickey’s hand was making its way downward once more, the feel of his fingers quickly soothing the loss of his mouth.

They were still kissing, tongues flicking each other teasingly, bodies pressed together with just enough give to allow Mickey to work his hand back and forth.  Eager to return to the favor, Ian slid his own hand back into Mickey’s pants.  He didn't have the benefit of a mouth slicked dick to work with but the nearly pained groan from the other man said this wasn't going to be an issue for long.

The feel of Mickey throbbing in his grip was just what Ian needed to tip him over the edge. Mickey was right behind them, the two of them groaning and straining and spilling over into each others’ hands.

For a few minutes after, they merely sagged into each other, breathing heavily, then with a quiet laugh Mickey pulled away.  He looked around for a minute before he snagged a roll of paper towels off a nearby shelf, tearing off a few before tossing the roll to Ian.  After they'd cleaned themselves off Ian finally broke the quiet.

“So...you're gay?”  he mentally punched himself in the face once the words were out.  Of all the idiotic, Captain Obvious things to say...

Mickey raised an eyebrow. _“Queerly.”_

Ian stared at Mickey for a minute before he started to laugh. “Queerly?  Are you fucking kidding me?  That is the worst pun I’ve ever  - do you actually think you’re _funny_?”

“Well,” Mickey shrugged. “It made you laugh.  That’s all I wanted.”  

His eyes were on Ian’s face as he spoke and Ian’s breath caught.

Mickey didn’t seem to notice the reaction Ian was having to every single minute thing he was doing.  He’d dug his phone out of his pocket to check the time.  “Still got a little while,” he said, mostly to himself, then his eyes drifted back to Ian and he grinned.  “Though I’m not opposed to taking an extra long lunch every once in a while.”

Ian was in total agreement; couldn’t even imagine being concerned about being back to his station on time, not if Mickey kept looking at him like that.  

And just like that, looking at him wasn’t enough.  Ian closed the gap between them to take Mickey’s face in his hands, and they were kissing again, long, slow, and deep, as if they had all the time in the world. A scenario that Ian suddenly and desperately wanted to be true.  He’d never felt like this before, never even felt anything close to this rush of excitement, this pure giddiness, not even when he was hooking up with his first, Roger, a kid from the hospital that Ian had once imagined he was madly in love with.  Most definitely not with Ned.  

The most mind-blowing part of it all, even beyond the fact that four days ago, Mickey Milkovich hadn’t even been on his radar and now it felt like the sun rose and set on the guy, was the sneaky hope, tentatively blooming, that Mickey might feel the same way.  He certainly didn’t seem to be in a rush to put an end to any of this, kissing Ian back just as eagerly as Ian was kissing him.

“Christ, Gallagher,” Mickey finally broke away long enough to speak in Ian’s ear, “You’re going to have me ready for round two a lot quicker than I expected.”

“You think there’s going to be a round two?”  Ian couldn’t resist teasing back.  “Getting kinda cocky here, don’t you think?”

Mickey shrugged, smiling.  “Just got a feeling about you, G,” and with that, he was kissing him again.

Ian wrapped his hands around the back of Mickey’s head to pull him closer, enjoying the fact that one hand could easily encircle his neck.  His fingers trailed down Mickey’s skin to drift under the collar of his t-shirt towards his shoulder, instantly regretting that they had stayed almost fully clothed during their first encounter. Ian couldn’t help but wonder if this would be a bad time to remedy that. He slid his hand fully underneath Mickey’s shirt as their embrace continued, luxuriating in the feel of Mickey’s smooth skin.

Abruptly, Ian felt the unexpected roughness of scar tissue under his fingertips.

Surprise made wrenching his mouth away from Mickey’s a little easier than it would have been otherwise.  “What’s this?”  he asked, starting to tug the collar away from Mickey’s skin so he could more clearly.  He’d just gotten a glimpse of a dark, circular mark near Mickey’s shoulder when the other man pulled carefully away.  

“That would be my damage, Gallagher,”  Mickey’s voice was quiet, resigned.  “Mine’s a little more physical than yours.”  

For a moment, he and Ian just contemplated each other, then Ian spoke again.  “You did say we’d save it for another time.  Seems pretty timely to me right now.”

Mickey groaned lightly.  “Instead of round two, you want to talk?”  he shook his head.  “Fucking buzz kill,” his smirk took most of the sting out of his words, before his smile faded.  “Fine, then.”

With that, Mickey slumped down on the concrete floor, his back against one of the shelving units, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, lighting one.  As he exhaled deeply, Ian joined him on the ground.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me”  Ian said finally, when Mickey didn’t seem too inclined to talk.

Mickey shrugged.   “You’d probably hear about it anyway.  Actually, I was kinda surprised you didn’t already know.  Rather tell you myself, before you get the ‘office telephone’ version.”

He passed the cigarette to Ian, who took it and put it to his lips even though he didn’t smoke anymore.  After Ian had taken a small drag, he waited.

“Happened a few years ago.  I think about the same time you hopped on the Stomach Pump Express,”  Mickey quirked his lips at Ian.  “Thing you should know, is my dad is kinda of an - “ he thought for a moment.  “An evil, psychotic prick,” he finished finally as Ian stared.  “Anyway, I found out that he was - “  Mickey broke off abruptly.  “Look, let’s just say there was some shit I needed to handle.  So I went after him with a baseball bat.”

“Jesus,” said Ian.  “Did you kill him?”

Mickey grimaced.  “Tried.  I definitely did some damage. But you know that saying about not bringing a knife to a gunfight?  Turns out you could say the same thing about a baseball bat.”

“Holy shit,” Ian whispered. “He had a gun?  What happened?”

Mickey chuckled darkly.  “He shot me.  What did you think happened?

 _“God,”_  Ian continued to stare, open mouthed.  “But you…”

“Lived, obviously,”  Mickey shrugged.  “It was close, though,” he gestured at the cigarette that Ian was holding in numb fingers, allowing it to turn into one long cinder.  Hurriedly, Ian handed it back to him.

“He tried to blame it all on me,”  Mickey continued.  “Told the cops and the paramedics I’d attacked him and he shot me in self defense.  He might have gotten away with it too; I had enough of a juvie record to make it believable, but Mandy stepped up for me.  She told them the truth.  She told them - “ he stopped again, looking at Ian cautiously.

“I get it,” Ian said quietly.  “That part’s not yours to tell.”

“Thanks,”  Mickey smiled slightly.  

“You seem – “ Ian stared at him. “Pretty fucking laid-back about it all.

 “Well,” Mickey considered.  “Would it sound weird if I said it was sort of the best thing that ever happened to me?”

 “Yes,” Ian said decisively. “I’m going to have to say that does sound pretty fucking off.”

 “It's like this,” Mickey tapped the ash off his cigarette. “Before my dad shot me, I spent my life being scared shitless.  I was scared of him, I was scared of myself.  I was scared to be who I really was.  But when I woke up in the hospital, it was just like everything I'd been so twisted up about before didn't matter anymore.  Didn’t hurt that dear old dad was in the big house by then.  Pretty damn unlikely he’s ever going to see daylight again so it's kinda a win win, far as I see it.”

 “Well,” Ian reached for the cigarette again, but it was really just an excuse to touch Mickey’s hand, “When you put it like that, it’s a beautiful story.”

 Mickey laughed. “See, I guess it was a slow news day because the local station picked up the story.  They must have showed just the right sad picture at the right exact time, because some bleeding hearts started one of those online fundraiser things for us,”  he rubbed the tip of his nose.  “They actually raised quite a bit of money. Not like we were set for life, but it was enough to make to take care of the medical bills that weren't already covered by the state and pay for a couple of years of community college for each of us.  First time I ever realized I might actually not be fucked for life.  First time I ever realized there were actually good people in the world too, you know? All those strangers, doing this shit for us because they read a tearjerker in their email.  Kinda blew my mind,”

 His smile faded.  “Everything should have been perfect.  But Mandy…I don’t know,” he leaned back and closed his eyes. “It was rough for me, growing up in that house. It was worse for her.  While I was in the hospital having ‘it’s a beautiful life’ epiphanies, she was getting her guts dragged out by the cops and the lawyers, every single fucking detail.  When I got home, I was so busy planning our great futures I didn’t even fucking see she was falling apart until it was too late.”

 “Mickey, whatever happened, it’s not your –“ Ian started.

 Mickey shook his head.  “Don’t tell me it’s not my fault,” the words were said without heat, but still a warning.  “I know it’s not my fucking fault.  That doesn’t mean there wasn’t shit I could have done better,” he sighed heavily at that. “You know, it’s not like in the movies when the bad guy goes away and everyone else gets to live happily ever after.  There’s always a mess to clean up.  That’s the part that I forgot,” he shook his head. “I have to take better care of her now. She’s all I got left.”

 Ian moved forward at that, sliding his hands over Mickey’s shoulders to hold him gently in place “She’s not the only person you have. Not anymore,” he murmured huskily.  He didn’t give a shit if it was too soon to say something like that, and by the emotion darkening Mickey’s eyes, he was pretty sure the other man didn’t either.

 “I want to see,” he put his lips to Mickey’s ear.  “Show me.”

 Mickey’s tongue darted out, licking his lips either in nervousness or anticipation.  Ian was already tugging the smaller man’s black t-shirt over his head.  He stopped when Mickey’s summer-warmed but still pale skin was bare to him from the chest up.

 “Here,” Mickey took Ian’s hand, putting it over the circular scar near his shoulder.  “And here,” he took Ian’s other hand, his fingers caressing Ian’s shaking fingers, and positioned it over another patch of marred skin on his torso.  “This is the one that almost took me out.”

 Ian circled the scars with his fingers as gently as he could.  Mickey felt tense underneath his fingers, but Ian was fairly certain it was with surprise, maybe even anticipation.  “It would take more than this to keep you down,” he whispered, the assurance more for himself than anything.

Mickey laughed low and breathlessly at that.  “It’s funny in a way, to think that Dad ended up shooting me because I was trying to beat his head in with a bat.  I always thought he’d be the one to take me out, but I figured it would be because of something like…” his gaze drifted downward to Ian’s caressing fingers criss-crossing his bare chest.  “Well, something like this.”

 “Like what?”  Ian’s tone was idle at first, his concentration more on the fascinating planes of Mickey’s upper body, before the words registered.  “For being gay?” he supposed he couldn’t be surprised that Mickey’s father was a raging homophobe on top of everything else.

“Yeah,” Mickey nodded.  “That was one message that was beat into me real early on.  Don’t be a sissy.  Don’t be a little bitch.  Don’t be a faggot,” Bitterness laced his tone now.  “No chance of me forgetting those lessons.  I’m not fucking stupid; I’m not about to advertise it.”

 Ian froze at those words, before he sat up abruptly, his heart sinking like a stone.  He should have known it was all too good to be true. “Yeah. Don’t worry. I get it.”

 Mickey sat up as well, his blue eyes confused.  “Get _what_?”

 Ian was already standing up, buttoning his jeans.  “I’m late.  Better get back on the phones.”

 “Are you fucking kidding me?” Mickey demanded, reaching for his shirt and pulling it back on as he studied the set line of Ian’s jaw.  “What did I say? I thought you were OK with all this.  I was thinking we could blow off the rest of the day, maybe go back to my place.”

 “Probably not a good idea,” Ian said flatly.  He looked towards the door.  “I’ll go first.  Wait five minutes, then you can split if you want.  That way no one will see us together.”

 “Wait –“ Mickey started to reach for him, but Ian pulled away.

 “Don’t worry, Mickey,” he said flatly.  “I’m not going to tell.”

 “Gallagher, would you just hold on one fucking minute –“  Mickey’s voice rose, but Ian was already opening the door.

 He was through it, moving fast, and halfway to the back door of the office when he heard Mickey call after him, “Anyone ever tell you that you have more mood swings than a chick on the rag, Gallagher?!”

 Ian didn’t look back.  He opened the back door and disappeared inside, leaving Mickey behind.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note: the reason why Ian is not mentioned as dancing at the White Swallow or the Fairy Tail is because the show portrayed them both as an extremely toxic and exploitative environment for him. My imagined club Goodfellas is not perfect, but it's a much better environment as far as staff/owners looking out for their dancers, watching for drug abuse, etc.
> 
> Again, thank you all SO much for all your kudos and feedback. It has made writing this so much fun. And I have every intention of replying to all of your lovely comments; I've just been using my free time to actually write, so it may not be until Saturday.
> 
> Just one chapter left!


	5. Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The finale chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any typos or formatting issues - I am literally running out the door and don't have time to proofread again. What you all call Friday, I call Monday. *sob*

One of the few good things about working at Bergeron was the abundance of free coffee.  Management was clearly quite aware that their workforce subsisted mostly on caffeine and broken dreams, so they kept the brown nectar of the working-class gods flowing at all times.

Shuffling into the breakroom, Ian stumbled over to the coffee machine to fill his cup, though this morning it felt like he needed an IV drip of caffeine right into his bloodstream if he was ever going to be able to shake the fog that surrounded him.  It had been a long, shitty night - he’d tossed and turned for most of it, reliving the last few minutes of his encounter with Mickey the day before.  

The worst part was that the giddiness of the days before, the excitement he’d felt every morning this whole week, just thinking of the possibility of seeing Mickey, was gone.  In its place was a burning emptiness, a void Ian had never experienced before.  Knowing what he’d almost had, what was still being held just the tiniest bit out of his reach - well, it made him call utter bullshit on the phrase ‘it’s better to have love and lost than never have loved at all.’  Fuck that; he’d pay cash money right now to still be as ignorant of the whole concept as he had been last Friday.

“Hi, Ian,”  an unfamiliar, high-pitched voice said quietly.

Ian looked up to see he wasn’t alone in the breakroom.  The blonde girl he’d seen with Dustin on Monday was sitting at a table next to the window, sipping from her own cup of coffee and tapping the screen on her cell phone with one finger.  She’d stopped to look up at him.

“Oh.  Hi,”  he muttered, looking away from her, surprised she’d initiated contact after hearing what Dustin had been filling her ears with about him.

There was a quiet snort from her direction.  “That’s a rather unenthusiastic greeting for someone who once had your dick in her mouth.”

Ian nearly dropped the freshly filled cup he’d just picked up, spinning around to face her, and really looking at her for the first time.

“K-Karen,” he managed to stammer after a minute.  “Jackson.”

Karen smiled, setting down her phone.  “He remembers!”  She beckoned him forward, indicating the chair next to her.  

Last thing he wanted to do was sit down with her - it was hard for Ian to imagine a more uncomfortable scenario.  All he wanted to do was escape and pretend none of this ever happened, which was pretty much what he’d done after their one abortive encounter, set up by his brother Lip after he’d found Ian’s stash of gay porn.

Nevertheless, he dragged himself over, taking the chair she’d indicated.

“So,” she said after a minute when it became clear Ian wasn’t going to be able to initiate conversation.  “Long time, no see.”

“A few years, yeah,”  he managed to croak out.  “Sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

“It’s not like you saw a lot of me,”  she shrugged.  “I spent 90% of the time we were together under the table.  Maybe if you’d seen the top of my head first you would have remembered me faster.”

Ian squirmed uncomfortably and she smirked.  “You know, I’d be seriously offended, but I saw something very interesting yesterday.  Kind of explains a lot.”

Ian froze in his seat.  She couldn’t be talking about -

“Mickey Milkovich,” her teasing tone confirmed his worst fears.  “Coming out of a side door of this very building, a couple of minutes after I saw you come out of the exact same door,”  she stopped to take a deliberately slow drink from her cup.  “He’s looking good these days, I must say.  I’d take a long lunch to tap that too, but clearly, I’m not his type.”

Ian’s fingers were clenched so tightly on his styrofoam cup it threatened to pop the top off.  “Karen, look, you can’t tell anyone.”

She scoffed.  “Why the hell would I tell anybody?  Believe it or not, Ian, who you choose to fuck is not what makes my world go round.  If you want to keep it quiet though, you two might want to consider combing out the mutual sex hair after you hook up.  It’s sort of a dead giveaway.”  

“Won’t be a problem,”  Ian shifted in his seat.  “Don’t plan on hooking up with him anymore.”

“Oh,”  Karen’s smile faded slightly and she looked at him contemplatively.  “That’s too bad.  I think you two make a cute couple.”

Ian stared down at his feet.  After a minute, she spoke again.  “How’s Lip?”

Ian looked up, relieved at the change of conversation.  “He’s good.  Just visited a couple of weeks ago.  He’s at MIT now.”

“I heard,”  there was a sad down turn to Karen’s smile now.  “About five minutes after I started training, actually,” she laughed to herself, shaking her head.  “Would I sound totally pathetic if I admitted that I took the job here because I was hoping to see him again?”

“No,”  Ian set down his cup.  “That doesn’t sound pathetic at all.  You know…”  he traced the lid of his cup before looking back up at her.  “He had it bad for you for a while.”

Karen nodded.  “Yeah.  I - “ she sighed.  “It wasn’t one-sided.  But I let him think it was.  Kinda thought he’d still be there, waiting, once I was ready,”  she heaved a deep sigh.  “Opportunity cost, you know.”  With that, she stood up, picking up her coffee and phone.  “Something you might want to think about,” she tossed a smile over her shoulder at him.  

If he thought about it any harder, his head was going to explode, Ian thought to himself as he copied her movement, following her to the door.  

Just as they were walking out of the break room, they were waylaid by none other than Ian’s favorite person, Dustin, putting the cherry on a truly craptacular start to Ian’s day.

“Hey, hot stuff,”  Dustin winked at Karen in a way he clearly thought was sexy, and it made Ian’s stomach churn.  He tried to walk away before Dustin noticed him, but no such luck.  “G-man!  How’s the cuckoo’s nest these days?”  He grinned as he slung an arm around Karen’s shoulder.

Karen immediately shoved Dustin’s arm off of her, scowling.  “You know what, Dustin?  Why don’t you go fuck yourself, because I’m sure as hell not going to do it for you.”  

Ian’s day was immediately made entirely better by the ensuing look on Dustin’s face, and the snickers from several of his co-workers, passing by.  Not even trying to hide his own grin, he pushed past the other man.

“Catch up with you later, Ian!”  Karen called after him, and he waved back much more whole-heartedly.

 

* * *

The morning passed, as he’d expected it too, in excruciating slowness.  All he could think about was Mickey.  They were bound to cross paths at some point - Ian vacillated wildly between desperately wanting it to happen and hoping that Mickey would exile himself to the IT office and miraculously not appear again until Ian had fully moved on, which in all fairness would be probably take about fifty years.

“Alright, this is getting pathetic,”  Ian jumped slightly as Bear’s voice sounded.  It had been uncharacteristically quiet all morning, which Ian had chalked up to his threat the day before to put Bear in his discounted Bergeron blender if he didn’t stop singing the one line he knew from ‘Sex and Candy’ over and over.  “Why don’t you just talk to the guy?  Clear the air?”

“Nothing to clear,” Ian bit out through gritted teeth.  

“Ah, the blessed vagaries of love,”  Football Man sighed sadly from his perch on the shelf.  “I loved once, in a past life.  I was a college student’s philosophy paper; she was a shredder.  It was doomed from the start.  But what a beautiful way to go.”

Bear groaned loudly.  “I swear, if I had hands I’d strangle you.”

“That would be counter-productive, as I have no need to breathe,”  Football Man’s voice was smug.

Ian could feel the migraine starting.  He leaned forward to rub his head as the two of them continued to bicker, then froze,  hyper aware, even as he stared determinedly at his monitor. of the footsteps coming up behind him.

“Incoming…”  Bear called before falling thankfully silent.

“Hey, Gallagher,” Ian tried not to start at the sound of his name on Mickey’s lips.  “Ran off kind of fast yesterday.”

“Yeah,”  After a long moment of staring at his keyboard as if his eyeballs were magnetically attracted to it, he finally forced himself to meet Mickey’s eyes.  

Mickey was leaning against the cubicle, wearing a gray t-shirt that clung to him just as tightly as the one Ian remembered peeling off him the day before in vivid detail.  Remembering what was hidden under the thin cloth, and how Mickey had let him touch his scars, was making what Ian needed to say to him even more excruciatingly difficult.

“Well, since we didn’t get to finish our, uh...conversation yesterday,”  Mickey smirked.  “I was kinda hoping you had tonight free.  Thought maybe we could do something.”

Ian swallowed, reaching forward to switch off his monitor, before he stood up, a bitter smile curving his lips.  “So, it would be like a booty call or something?  Or are you just looking for a quick handy j from the office freak?”  He kept his voice low, doing his best to not be overheard.

It was the resulting hurt on Mickey’s face that immediately snuffed out his resentment.  

“Mickey,” he kept his voice low.  “I’m sorry.  I’m being an asshole and you don’t deserve it. It’s just that...I really like you a lot.  And yesterday was...it was amazing.   But I just - I can’t be somebody else’s secret.    I’ve already been there and I can’t do it again,“ he sighed.  

Mickey exhaled a long, frustrated breath, leaning forward.  “Jesus Christ, Gallagher...how did you get the message so fucking twisted?”

Ian gritted his teeth and turned back to his desk to sign out.  He needed to get away from Mickey right now, before he lost his resolve, and the look in Mickey’s eyes was already threatening to short circuit it on an epic level.

“Ian, could you at least fucking look at me?  Give me a chance to explain?”

“No,”  Ian said flatly.  “There’s nothing to explain.  You didn’t do anything wrong and you don’t owe me anything.   It’s not that I don’t get it, OK, why you want to keep things on the down low.   I’m just telling you where I’m coming from.”  

“You know what?”  Mickey’s words were quietly explosive.  “You are the most stubborn, hard-headed, unwilling to listen motherfucker, and if I didn’t like you so fucking much I wouldn’t bother."

Ian’s head snapped up, but before he could even come close to trying to find a response, they were interrupted.

Amanda and Jasmine had been standing next to Jasmine’s desk at the end of the row, talking.  Something about the tone of Ian and Mickey’s whispered conversation must have caught their attention, because they’d made their way over.

“What’s going on here?”  Amanda looked from Ian to Mickey, her face concerned.  Jasmine seemed to only have eyes for Mickey, her gaze locked on him suspiciously.

Before Ian could say anything, Mickey shrugged. “Nothing much.  Just trying to ask Gallagher out on a date.”

Ian’s jaw hit the floor at the same time that Amanda and Jasmine’s did; he could see his own shock echoed on their faces.  He also couldn’t help but see out of the corner of his eye several heads swivel around to stare in their direction.

Mickey noticed too, turning away from Ian to address their sudden audience.  “Do you need me to speak up?”  he demanded.

“YES!”  Several voices yelled back. “Have pity for those of us in the cheap seats!”  Another voice added from several rows over.  Mickey rolled his eyes, heaving an exasperated sigh.

Amanda’s eyes were darting back and forth between Ian and Mickey before her lips curved into a smile.  “Interesting!  Well, how’s that going for you, Mr. Milkovich?”

Mickey snorted, but before he could answer, Matty popped out from the other side of the row, still holding cables from the computer he’d apparently been hooking up.  “He’s sinking like the Titanic,” he informed Amanda, shaking his head.  “It’s sad,”  he turned to Ian.  “I’d vouch for him and all that, tell you he’s a good guy, but truth is, he’s an asshole.  You could probably do better.”

“Thanks a lot,”  Mickey snorted.  “I may be going down like a ship, Baker, but at least I can say I’ve gone down,” his smile twitched into the Cheshire Cat’s own grin at that, the innuendo clear.  “More than some can say.  My sister can’t even remember your name half the time, and it’s like two letters different from hers,” he smirked as Matty stopped grinning abruptly.

 He turned back to Ian, smiling slightly at the clear shock still registered on Ian’s face.  “Happy now?  I said I wasn’t advertising, G, not that I was hiding.”

“Oh,”  Ian said in a small voice.  He suddenly felt very idiotic and petty.  At the same time, he felt like he was lighting up from the inside out in a surreal kind of way, hardly able to believe that any of this was really happening, that Mickey Milkovich was standing in front of him, telling Ian in front of their small piece of the world that he wanted to be with him.

Mickey frowned, watching Ian clearly struggle to speak, before looking over at their unwelcome audience.  “Can you all at least pretend to not be listening?”

“Oh!”  At that, heads swiveled reluctantly away from them, Matty ducked back under the station he’d been working on, and Jasmine and Amanda turned away to stage a clearly fake conversation.

“Great, thanks,”  Mickey’s tone was deeply sarcastic as he turned back to Ian.  “What do you say?  Thought we could go take Mandy with us, go see Matty’s band play.  I mean, they suck, but it could still be a good time.”

“We do not suck!  We’re just in a transitional phase!”  Matty yelled back from under the desk.

“Um, yeah,”  Ian knew his face was redder than it had ever been, and for a champion blusher, that was really saying something.  Still, he couldn’t help the smile that was beaming across his face.  “That would be nice.”

Mickey broke into the most beautiful smile Ian had ever seen in response.  “Oh, hang on.  I brought you something,” he dug into his pocket.  To Ian’s deep surprise, he extracted a small multi-colored porcelain dragon, with one ear missing and chips in several places.   “Little worse for wear,” Mickey shrugged.  “Was mine when I was a kid.  Found it on my closet floor last night - thought it have a happier life here.”  With that, he set it on the shelf between Bear and Football Man.

“Dragons, huh?”  Ian grinned.

Mickey shrugged.  “Computers and dragons.  King of the nerds, right?”

“Maybe so, but you still look like the guy who just beat up the king of the nerds,”  Ian told him.

“Good to know.  So how about I buy you lunch?”  He held out a hand to help Ian to his feet.

“Sure,”  Ian took his hand, standing up.  To his surprise, Mickey did not let go of his hand once Ian was on his feet.  Instead, he laced his half bare fingers through Ian’s, entwining them together.  Ian heard an audible aww but he didn't care to find the source, too busy staring at Mickey, who just smiled back, keeping their fingers linked together as he led him away.

“Well, that went better than I would have expected,”  Ian heard Bear saying as they walked away.

“It would warm my heart, if I had one,”  Football Man added mournfully.

“Fear me!”  The dragon spoke suddenly.  “I'll kill you all!  Eviscerate your loved ones!  Fill the world with fire and brimstone!  I am Dragon, and I have come to end you!”

The last thing Ian heard before Mickey led him out the door was Bear’s gasp.   _“Rude!”_

  the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, this is belatedly updated so if anyone comes back to re-read, thank you all SO much for all the feedback I've received on this. It has been very unexpected, and very delightful. Every single one of you kudos'ing and commenting people are Made of Awesome and you are so much appreciated. 
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed this all the way through; thank you again for your comments and please do let me know what you think!
> 
> And as always, I can be found at http://avalonia320.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking a chance on this little tale; feedback is always very much appreciated, and be sure to check back each day for a new chapter until it concludes this Friday!
> 
> I can be found at http://avalonia320.tumblr.com/


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